Archive Sunday #53

  Picking back up in Hamburg, I realized I forgot to mention some stuff. First off we made a short trip to a sweet little music shop to fix one of the guitar amps. Luc had been there before, so he was pretty sure they could help us out. They had a bunch of cool old Sunn amps we checked out while we waited, and I ended up buying this Bespeco foot switch pedal to replace mine that broke a few shows before. It's definitely an Italian knockoff of the famous Roland design that is super popular in the States, but it got the job done and had an even cooler name. The store was right across the street from the soccer club named after the neighborhood St. Pauli. So Andrew walked over during the wait to buy one of their famous club t-shirts with the jolly roger design. Luckily the amp was a relatively quick fix, and we headed back to the venue. I remember Andrew was trying to connect with our bus driver Thomas by mentioning the crazy Las Vegas-type-strip called the Reeperbahn a few blocks away. Thomas just slowly turned to him and said, "Reeperbahn is closed." Andrew thought this guy must be joking, but his completely straight face made him actually question it haha. Turns out Thomas just had this hilarious dry sense of humor that even a limited amount of English couldn't get in the way of.

  The next day we traveled most of the way to Zurich, Switzerland. The European Union has pretty strict rules in place for how many consecutive hours a tour bus driver can drive without determined breaks, and this trip was especially difficult because we ran into a couple major accidents on the highway along the way. I remember being so bummed when we figured out we would have to spend the night at this depressing German truck-stop in the middle of nowhere, on Will's birthday no less. He was a good sport about it though, and we grabbed some prepackaged pastries from the gas station to celebrate in the lounge of the bus before we turned-in for the night. I remember waking up a bit later when the bus started moving down the road again, but this time it didn't really matter because the crossing guards would have to check our passports a little bit later when we crossed the border.

  It was surprisingly easy crossing into Switzerland considering the last time we had to leave things on the side of the road due to weight issues. I guess I just assumed the even heavier bus would pose more problems. But we arrived at the festival grounds outside Zurich and brushed our teeth in the parking lot before the artist area opened. Once we got in, we were pleasantly surprised with the impressive catering spread and relaxing sofas. I remember we were grubbing out at the buffet with Thomas, and he was trying so hard to convince Ethan that this mysterious dish was actually dog haha. His limited English forced his setup, but he basically just stood there pointing at Ethan's plate repeatedly saying "dog." Honestly his completely straight face had Ethan second guessing it for a second, but the rest of us cracking up around him gave it away. I don't remember much about this show in particular, but I'm fairly sure this is where we caught most of Beach Fossil's set who were playing on the same stage.

  The following day we woke up in Luxembourg, which was a sweet opportunity to experience the country for our first time. We played at this small laid-back club that was part of this mixed-use arts space in an old train station called Rotondes. It was a nice change of pace from the previous festivals, but also meant our schedule reverted back to a later venue set. The show itself was going well, but about halfway through Andrew pipped up on the mic while we were tuning to fill the silence. He said something like, "hey wow I didn't even realize this place was even a country until earlier today." Needless to say the locals probably heard comments all the time poking fun at the country's size and significance, so they didn't quite see the humor in it. That moment was probably the only time I remember hearing audible boo's in the crowd, but thankfully I think we won most of them back over by the end of the set.

  I don't remember the exact timeline, but around this time on the tour Andrew was dealing with the effects of some sketchy street sausage he ate. It turned into this vicious cycle of him waking up early with stomach cramps and diarrhea, but due to the bus rules he had to desperately hold it in till we arrived at the next stop. So pretty much every morning he would scurry out of the bus right when it parked in search of a restroom in unfamiliar territory. Luckily he seemed to find some humor in the situation, but I don't know if I could show a similar resolve if I was the one with food poisoning. I remember when we arrived in Berlin it was one of those days where he ran outside to find a bathroom. This festival was called Pure and Crafted and had motorcycle culture focus due to the fact it was sponsored by BMW. The artist area had this beach/tiki hut vibe by the river that along with the sunny weather kinda made us forget where we were for a bit. But when we got to the stage the atmosphere turned more rustic and industrial. We watched some local German bands perform as we set up all our gear, but I didn't catch any of their names. The show went great and the crowd seemed super responsive after a long day of drinking. Plus afterwards, I'm pretty sure this was our first time catching our label-mates Interpol live as they performed the headlining set later on.

  We made our way back to France later that night to play another festival in Paris the next day. This one was called Rock En Seine and seemed a bit larger-scale than the night before. We ran into the Lemon Twigs and Mac Demarco at the artist tents backstage and got to chat a bit to catch up. Mac Demarco said his band had this idea to invite several guests onstage to experience the set while enjoying French wine and bread from a table they had set up. He told us we were all welcome to come out if we were up for it. So after our early afternoon set, Andrew and Will joined them for the set and said it was an awesome chill time with top-notch music happening all around them. I have no idea what Ethan and I were doing at the time, but I definitely remember watching Slowdive later on so maybe we caught that set instead. I think by this point we were realizing tour bus life wasn't the greatest fit for most of us given we were pretty light sleepers and it often felt kinda like camping while trying to figure out where we could find a shower or a meal next. But we tried to make the most of it, and often got together in the lounge to watch Ethan and Andrew play Starcraft to pass some of the monotonous time on the road. Luckily we were most of the way through the tour and the end was in sight!